Our new Cerro Paldo red honey is an outstanding crop! This Costa Rican brew has a delicate floral aroma along with a rich, sweet flavor. It offers a full-body with complex, citrus-fruit nuances covered in subtle, red fruit, plum, cranberry, tangerine and caramel-chocolate undertones.

“Honey” is a relatively new term describing coffee that has been dried with all or some...read more of the sticky fruit pulp or “honey” (miel in Spanish) still adhering to the bean. Those familiar with coffee processing methods will, of course, recognize this practice as a kind of compromise between two more familiar processing methods: the dry or “natural” method, in which the beans are dried while entirely encased inside the fruit, and the wet or “washed” method, in which all of the soft fruit residue, both skin and pulp, are scrubbed off before the coffee is dried. Like all variations in processing method, honey processing profoundly impacts cup character, which is doubtless the main reason producers, particularly in Central America, have been experimenting with it. - Coffee Review

Just 45 minutes to the South of San Jose lies Cerro Paldo in the district of Aserri, Tarbaca, a micro-region of the popular coffee region of Tarrazu. Cerro Paldo is owned by Ronald Monge Valverde, the third generation of coffee producers in the family. His grandfather Adam Monge Castro bought 2 hectares of land more than 60 years ago and began their legacy. Ronald's father, Juan Rafael Monge Picado inherited the farm and has passed it on to his son. Currently 10 people live on the farm and are devoted to producing high quality coffee.

The excellence required to process mature fruit has been the key to obtaining a high quality cup. Their sustainable production system uses vegetable covers and organic matter, instead of agrochemicals. The Monge Valverde family is a member of the Asociacion Agropecuaria de Productores de Acosta y Aserri. ASOPROAAA is a producer association established 3 years ago to work together with the objective of adding value to their products by establishing strict quality standards on coffee production and processing. The initial investment to build a mill was challenging and demanded a lot of hard work but all the efforts paid off when they won first place with Cerro Paldo at the 2007 Costa Rica Cup of Excellence.